Disputing voices in the regulation of work on digital platforms in Brazil: A decolonial perspective

Although labor law should represent the voices of all working classes, its epistemology has never reflected labor relations from the ‘Global South’. The lack of legal protection for collective organization and actions exercised by ‘non-white’ people from the ‘Global South’ can be seen as a result of coloniality in labor law. Considering this epistemic coloniality, we will address the voice disputes in the regulation of work on digital platforms in Brazil in four sections: (1) the social scenario of platform work; (2) the main controversies of legal regulation involving courts; (3) the national negotiating roundtable, with the resulting Bill 12/2024; and (4) a decolonial analysis of the regulation of platform work. The qualitative legal–sociological and the observation–participatory method were applied. We conclude that with a legal epistemology intertwined in coloniality, Brazilian labor law performs a regulation of work on digital platforms that maintains racial and social structures of the power of colonization.